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Jefferson Strait, John B. McCoy and John T. McCoy Professor of Physics, Emeritus

You have devoted your time at Williams to both little things and big things. Your research has focused on pulses of light with a wavelength of a millionth of a meter that last for a trillionth of a second. The most important training for this work is learning not to blink. Outside the lab, you chose to keep your eye on things larger than yourself. You have mentored countless students, many of whom have gone onto graduate work. You have advised virtually every student interested in engineering. You have supported thoughtfully your colleagues. You have expanded the curriculum, including with courses on energy that interwove science,technology, and social issues. And you have taught a popular Winter Study course on holography that introduced students, many of them from well outside the major, to that technology’s uses beyond projecting Princess Leia. Perhaps most notably, your desire to serve the community led to your term as college marshal, applying your focus on small details to the large task of organizing the college’s convocations and commencements. Fittingly, we honor you today at a ceremony of which for many years you were steward.

I hereby declare you John B. McCoy and John T. McCoy Professor of Physics, Emeritus, entitled to all the rights, honors, and privileges appertaining thereto.